Promises to Continue Fighting on Putin's Inauguration Day, Widow of Russian Opposition Leader: Country Has No Peace or Freedom

Yulia Navalnaya. (Wikimedia Commons/belgium24.eu)

JAKARTA - Exiled Russian opposition leader Yulia Navalnaya urged her supporters on Tuesday to continue fighting against and criticizing Vladimir Putin, as he was sworn in as president for a fifth term.

"Our country is currently led by a liar, thief, and murderer, but this will definitely end. Don't give up, the truth will prevail," Navalnaya said in a video uploaded to YouTube shortly before Putin's inauguration ceremony in the Kremlin, reported by Reuters, May 8.

Based outside Russia, Navalnaya vowed to continue the work of her late husband and Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in an Arctic penal colony on February 16. She accused Putin of killing her husband. However, the Kremlin firmly denied these accusations.

Navalnaya said Putin's war in Ukraine and the jailing of his political opponents had made a mockery of his promises at his previous inauguration to bring peace and prosperity to Russia and protect the rights and freedoms of its people.

"Large sums of money are stolen from us every day to fund the bombing of peaceful cities, riot police beating people with batons, propagandists spreading lies. And also for (elite) palaces, yachts, and private jets," said Navalnaya.

"And as long as this continues, we cannot stop the resistance," she continued.

Vladimir Putin was sworn in as President of Russia for his fifth term on Tuesday at the Kremlin, after winning 87.28 percent of the vote in the presidential election held in March.

The Kremlin said the vote showed Russian society was overwhelmingly united behind her, describing Navalnaya and her late husband's supporters as Western-backed extremists bent on trying to destabilize the country.

It said, with the death of Navalny and other prominent Kremlin critics jailed or exiled, the opposition in Russia had been effectively crushed. Navalnaya acknowledged the struggle is difficult, but urged society to unite against corruption and war.

"With each term in office, things have gotten worse, and it's scary to imagine what else will happen while Putin is still in power," she said.

"With him as leader, our country will have no peace, development or freedom. We must ensure that no one in the world trusts Putin, neither in Russia nor outside its borders," said Navalnaya.